An Advent Canvas

In two weeks, the Christian calendar kicks off with the first week of Advent, and no doubt churches all around the world have been locked away in their thinking caves collaborating and creating for this important season. Engaging with this season is important for us as faith communities and as people of soul and life. Finding ways to do that while still honoring our collective voice of thousands of years and inviting in the new voices can be energizing and exhausting.

In most churches I've been a part of for the last few years, the conversation always centers around how to make Advent catchy, hip, creative, emotionally wrought, etc. and less around how to make it a great season of recalibration. In other words, we talk a whole lot about "how" and not nearly enough around "who, when, where, why, and now what." I have no profound answers, but I want to share what I think are some great insights from conversations along the way about painting on this Advent canvas - for us as worship leaders and for the people we serve:

Advent and Christmas are not the same thing. Obvious, right? Not so much. We have the great advantage of being part of a tradition that has recognized Advent as the beginning of the Christian year, and yet it has often morphed into a four week long Christmas pageant. So what's the difference? Christmas is a remembrance of the birth of Christ; Advent is a set-apart-time to intentionally think about our in-betweenness. Christmas is a joyous celebration of good people and holy night stories; Advent is full of angst, beauty, profound mystery, and full of the heightened-holy of the day to day and tangible. The symbols of Christmas are shepherds encountering sky-tearing angels, mangers with humble babes, innocent women with hope in their eyes, and wise kings bowing low; the symbols of Advent are strangers entertaining angels, the tearing down of the "sacred versus secular" wall - the tearing down of all our walls, children as wise-people, not simply dressed up as wise men, those things that represent soul - breath, life, slow exhalations, and invitations to wholeness.

When we come to our Advent brainstorming, how many of us come with those symbols of Christmas already penciled onto our canvas? This limits our ability to really throw off the shackles of purely social expectation and enter into our jobs as interpreters - which is really our job as artists, to interpret the deep levels of life for those who may not yet have the eyes to see it.

If we saw Advent as a season of seeing God, soaking in the beautiful tension of a kingdom that is here and yet also there, how would this change our creative planning? How would this change our gatherings? How does that inspire our interpretation of the great traditions of the Church?

We are a visual people and have our paradigms affected powerfully by the visual. This is one feels easy, but maybe I'm being naive about your congregations. The easiest place to start a paradigm shift for people is by changing their visual associations. If you are or have a great designer, nows the time to move out of the overflow of solitary candles, mangers, starry nights, and evergreens. Here's a fantastic opportunity to teach your congregation, through the visuals you choose, how to practice seeing God outside our Christian and Christmas boxes. Beautiful Advent visuals can be thought provoking, emotionally in touch, awakening our greater awareness. I'm always in awe of the work of great designers who have a strong connection with the now-and-not-yet. It can move a congregation from passive Christmas revelers to life-giving kingdom dwellers.

Create encounters outside the gathering. Wow, I know the Advent season is already crammed full for worship leaders and their teams. Please hear me say that I'm not advocating more programming or more work. I am talking about presentness and finding ways to invite people into that as well throughout the season. Hosting a great dinner, meeting a group for wine and cheese, baking cookies with kids (I'm Latin...is anyone picking that up from the food theme here...), hosting a poetry night, facilitating an afternoon with blank canvases and Advent inspirations, you get the idea. Just being present in our communities as artists and people with a great sense of anticipation and beauty makes this season more about the ongoing work of God in the world and less about the moment in history as an isolated story.

Tell lots and lots of stories. Never was there a more appropriate time in our year to hear from each other about where we've seen God, where we've encountered the Divine, how we've been ushered into wholeness. This is a powerful worship ritual for us as the people of God - this is where and how we affirm that God is truly moving, alive, active, and co-creating in our world and in our time. This is where we bless God for all that we know and don't know about him, for all that God's revealed himself to be to us, for all that he continually beckons us towards. Remembering, living fully, and hoping for what is to come are all traits of the Advent worshiper. All of these things are present in our stories.

This is a hardly a comprehensive list about finding the Advent muse. But it is a chance to re-explore and re-discover some of our expectations. In this season of longing and hope, anticipation and beauty, we have a great opportunity to recalibrate ourselves so that we have eyes to see where God is, the God who is with us, the Prince of Peace, the one who gives abundant life.

Have a blessed Advent season and may the deep mystery of the season inspire you.


Jodi Adams is a teacher, author, and visionary for community worship. She serves as a teaching pastor and worship pastor at an urban church.

Passionate about empowering artists and leaders to take their congregations beyond the culture box, Jodi is a contributor to CTI's FaithVisuals.com and GiftedforLeadership.com and speaks regularly on the convergence of cultural issues and worship.

Jodi is currently completing her M.Div. at Denver Seminary and finishing her first book, which is due out next year. She and her jazzy husband, Justin, live in Denver with their three children: Sara, Anna-Michelle, and Leo, along with Karma the Wonder Dog.